


Old Friends, New Faces

by CharacteristicallyMinor



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Pre and Post Reichenbach, Time Lord John Watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 15:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6014284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharacteristicallyMinor/pseuds/CharacteristicallyMinor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a Time Lord makes life complicated. Finding out that your best friend slash crush is still alive after you've regenerated makes life even more complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

The Adventurer was sick of war. "Join the Time War," they'd said. "It's the adventure of a lifetime!" 

The Adventurer had found that that was patently untrue. War was bloody boring, not to mention just plain bloody. The Adventurer fought for the thrill of it, or he fought when the cause was good enough. This wasn't that. The Time Lords were so intent on destroying the Daleks that they didn't care who was hurt in the process. 

When the Adventurer was shot by a new Dalek weapon that left a scar even after he regenerated, he decided that enough was enough and got the hell out of the Time War. 

Three regenerations back, the Adventurer had helped set up a friend, Horiwutsun, with a fake identity on a fairly minor planet called Earth. He'd put her in touch with the right people- the right person being Bill Murray, a rather enterprising Silurian, in this case- on the condition that her identity include an estranged brother who was off fighting in whatever war the Earth currently had going on. It never hurt to have a few extra identities ready, and in this case it had definitely paid off. 

Earth, particularly Earth in the time period Earth called the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, was only known as being the favorite planet of one of the most famous Time Lords, the Doctor. The Adventurer figured that meant it had a pretty decent chance of continuing to exist; the Doctor tended to be possessive, and he was considered one of the most powerful Time Lords around. Besides, the Doctor might not have been the Adventurer's favorite person, but he was never boring, at least. 

The first few days on Earth were fun; he'd gotten to catch up with Bill and Horiwutsun, who was now going by the name "Harry Watson." He'd become John Watson, an ex-soldier and doctor. John, as he was practicing calling himself, had spent years in his first regeneration becoming a medic for as many species as he could, since he figured that he was living a dangerous life and would need to be able to heal any friends he made. Humans were one of the species he learned about, although he was going to have to adjust to this century's medical practices. 

After he'd been on Earth for a few weeks, he had to reconsider his assessment; Earth was incredibly boring. He'd learned about this time period's medical, diagnostic, and surgical technology and was pretty sure he could comfortably pass for a doctor if he needed to. He didn't particularly want to, though. Being a doctor was dull.

John's therapist, who he went to in order to maintain his cover, thought he was having trouble adjusting to civilian life. She was right, although she also thought that his limp was psychosomatic. To be fair, though, she couldn't have guessed that it was a habit left over from his last regeneration.

Eventually, Harry put John in touch with a fellow immigrant she knew. Mike Stamford had a bit of a reputation for connecting like-minded people, and she figured that John needed a friend.


	2. Chapter Two

A few months after coming to Earth, John heard a rapping on the door.

"John, get the door," Sherlock ordered from his position lying down on the couch.

"Why would I get the door?" John asked, already resigned to getting the door but arguing for the sake of it anyways. "You're just staring at the ceiling, while I'm actually working."

"You're writing your blog, not working," Sherlock accused. 

"At this point, my blog is my job," John pointed out. "The blog brings us cases with paying clients. Not to mention, we're getting a bit of ad revenue from the blog. Since you've made it so that I can't hold down a job as a doctor, this is my job."

John didn't mind being unable to work as a doctor, really. Humans apparently had terrible immune systems; most of the patients who came to the clinic either had a cold or the flu. It was terribly boring, especially compared to his old life or to the time he spent with Sherlock.

Sherlock Holmes was brilliant. He'd looked at John and told him everything about his life, even though every detail was wrong. John didn't blame him, though; he'd done the best he could with the limited knowledge of the universe most humans had at this point in time. The only thing John had corrected Sherlock on was Harry's gender; he'd left out the part about how her the scratches on the phone were due to Harry's constant hand tremor and not alcoholism, how Clara was only ever a cover story, and how John was estranged from Harry because it had been two hundred years since he'd seen her and they were practically strangers nowadays. Still. Anybody who could look at John and see that he was an ex-soldier and doctor with a limp that was all in his head was worth taking notice of.

Being with Sherlock was thrilling. There were nemeses and madmen and chases through the city. It was like he'd never stopped adventuring. 

Between their cases, John had learned how to be a normal person in this time and place. He made tea. He applied for a job. He had some trouble with the old fashioned technology, but he learned how to type on a keyboard (although the machines at the grocery store still gave him some trouble). Once John was able to type at a reasonable speed, he'd finally taken his therapist's advice and started a blog. 

John's pursuit of being mistaken for a normal human was aided greatly by Sherlock's complete inability to act like one. Any errors that John made tended to be chalked up to Sherlock's influence, and Sherlock himself rarely noticed John's mistakes. John realized with amusement that Sherlock was more likely to be mistaken for an alien than John was, even though Sherlock was a standard twenty-first century human (John had checked, just in case).

John was rather surprised that Sherlock hadn't figured out that John's whole past was a lie, given his deductive abilities. Then again, the existence of aliens wasn't widely known about on Earth yet. John was careful to wear his bio-dampener (disguised as military dog tags) constantly; knowing Sherlock, the possibility that he'd try to take a DNA sample of John at some inopportune time was pretty high.

However, when Harry entered their apartment, John wondered whether the whole human experiment was over. Sherlock might not have picked up on John's alien-ness, but there was no guarantee that Harry wouldn't give something away.

"Hey, John," Harry said, oblivious to the crisis going on inside his head. "Your landlady let me in."

"Another girlfriend of yours?" Sherlock asked, not bothering to turn around. "How dull."

"Hi, Harry," John said. "I didn't know you were stopping by."

"That would be Sherlock, then?" Harry asked. "And I didn't know, either. I've got a gig later at a bar a few blocks over and just realized how close you were, so I decided to stop by. I probably should have warned you, sorry."

"No, it's fine. Do you want to go out and grab a bite before the gig, then?" John suggested. "I'd come to your gig, but I suspect I wouldn't be welcome there."

"Lesbian bars do tend to disapprove of male clientele," Harry agreed.

Sherlock sat up and actually looked at Harry. "Harry Watson, John's sister. Of course. You aren't an alcoholic."

"Thank you, I suppose," Harry replied.

"The scratches on your old phone and the abysmal spelling on your replies to John's blog posts led me to believe otherwise. Based off John's lack of reaction at the idea of you going to a bar, however, led me to believe otherwise. So- ah, you have a tremor in both hands," Sherlock deduced.

"You weren't exaggerating in your blog posts," Harry noted. "He really is as observant as you said."

"There's a reason I didn't correct him of his assumption that you were an alcoholic. It does him good to be wrong occasionally; he's got a big enough head as it is," John said, a tad smug about his deception. Not that that was the only secret he was hiding from Sherlock. 

"Sherlock, would you like to join us for dinner?" Harry asked, apparently keen on stirring up as much trouble in John's life as possible.

"With pleasure," Sherlock replied, apparently in the mood to be polite. John was pretty sure Sherlock was only coming to observe Harry and her relationship to him, but John knew it was too late to cancel the invite.

Surprisingly, the dinner was a success. Harry took great pleasure in asking Sherlock to deduce the other diners, Sherlock didn't make a scene, and nobody's identity as an alien was revealed.

When they got home, Sherlock said, much more carefully than usual, "You and Harry show no signs of being genetically related." He seemed concerned that this would come as a surprise to John.

"I know," John said agreeably. "We were both adopted."

"Hmm," Sherlock said in reply. That was that, it seemed.


	3. Chapter Three

John was used to friends dying. His species was more long-lived than most, and his friends tended to live dangerous lives. He wasn't okay with their deaths, but he'd learned how to move on.

John couldn't seem to move on from Sherlock. After Sherlock killed himself, John found himself becoming increasingly depressed. Part of that was guilt; John should have realized that their conflict with Moriarty was going to end in Sherlock's death. He'd been so caught up in the excitement that he'd forgotten to think critically. It was a mistake that John resolved not to make again.

Another part of John's grief was that Sherlock hadn't been just a friend, not really. John knew that he'd been in love with Sherlock. Everyone but Sherlock had known, and John was content to leave it that way. He hadn't thought that Sherlock was interested in romance, and John enjoyed just being around Sherlock enough that he didn't really mind their relationship being strictly platonic.

After a couple of weeks, John decided that staying on Earth wasn't healthy. He'd went through the motions- gone to Sherlock's funeral, visited his old therapist, and comforted Mrs. Hudson. Nothing that he did helped to take away the dull ache of loss. 

John considered killing off Moriarty's network, but he decided he was too close to the issue. He'd go off-planet for a while and come back later, when he could be logical about smoking out Moriarty's network. 

He went to see Harry before leaving.

"You're going off-planet, aren't you?" Harry asked. There wasn't any judgement in her voice.

"I can't stay here any longer," John agreed.

"Are you going to come back in the future?" Harry asked.

"I'm not sure. If you don't hear from me in the next two days, you can go ahead and report me as missing," John said. 

"They'll assume that you killed yourself," Harry stated. "Are you going to tell your friends otherwise?"

"I don't think I can. I've left notes for Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade, but they're just general reassurances. They'll probably be interpreted as suicide notes. It's not good, but I'm planning on returning to this time anyways. The notes are just a precaution," John told her. 

"Do you want me to tell Bill and Mike the truth, if you don't come back?" Harry asked.

"That would be great," John said thankfully. "I'm sorry for leaving you with this."

"It's fine," Harry said. "I didn't expect you to stay even this long. Earth suits me, but without Sherlock, Earth isn't really your kind of place."

John said goodbye to Harry and left the Earth.

* * *

Years later, John was glad that he had sent those letters. He'd meant to only take a short break, but then he'd discovered that the Time Lords and the Daleks were all gone, with the exception of the Doctor. John had held a lot of resentment for his species, but that didn't mean that he wanted to be one of the only two left. John made a note to stay away from the Earth; he didn't want to deal with meeting the Doctor, and the Earth was his favorite planet. 

John took on various names depending which planet he was on, but he stopped thinking himself by his Time Lord name or going by his title. He was still adventuring, but he wanted to blend in. He didn't want to be one of the last two Time Lords; he just wanted to be a nomadic adventurer, no capitals.

Twenty years after Sherlock Holmes died, John was going by the name Oni Atson. He'd been feeling nostalgic when he decided that his Apalapucian name would be a variation on his old Earth name. The name seemed to be lucky, at first; he met a wonderful anthropologist called Ari Orstan. They were bonded a few months later, and Oni felt happier than he had since Sherlock died.

Four years later, the name seemed more like a curse, when the couple were infected with Chen-7. A day later, Ari was dead and Oni had regenerated. There had been a possibility that the disease would prevent him from regenerating, but that didn't happen. He wasn't as relieved about that as he could have been.

Oni surveyed his new body the day after he regenerated. Darker skin, darker hair, taller, no scars, and different teeth. Teeth always took a while to adjust to, post-regeneration; they were never the same, and the differences tended to be annoying for the next couple of weeks. He was about the same physical age and gender as he had been before.

Oni resolved not to let himself fall in love again. The last two times he had, both had ended in heartbreak and their early deaths.


	4. Chapter Four

Eventually, Oni went back to adventuring. Six years after Ari died, Oni decided it was time to tie up loose ends. After spending months in a jungle dealing with shapeshifting pack animals, he was in the mood for a bit of a break. 

So Oni went back to twenty-first century Earth, a couple of days after his previous self had left. He'd picked out a new name, going with James Armitage. Ari had been researching the Skldeo peoples, and James remembered that they had taken on the names of their enemies until they defeated them. James figured Moriarty would just invite government attention, but another James wouldn't draw undue attention.

James checked in with Harry. It was good to see her again, after all those years. He explained to her that he'd regenerated, and that she should file a police report about his absence. She was willing, and James felt lucky that he had her for a friend. 

James asked one of his other immigrant friends, Bill Murray, to keep an eye on Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade. James was concerned that one or both of them would be targeted in revenge for his destruction of Moriarty's agency. Murray put a couple of his employees on the task, and James felt confident enough of their safety to leave.

Then, he went hunting. 

James had brought a vortex manipulator with him, which both functioned as a bio-dampener and made other matters significantly simpler. It was much easier to hunt for humans when he could teleport and travel in time and they couldn't. Dismantling Moriarty's organization would still take time, but he had plenty of that. 

James could have gone for shock and awe, but he decided to space the killings out over a few months rather than totally decimate Moriarty's organization in one night. James wanted them to know that he was coming for them. He wanted them to be unable to fall asleep for fear that it would be their branch that he targeted the next morning.

James had no interest in playing fair. He had no qualms about crossing his own timeline and being in several locations on the Earth at one time; he was practiced enough that he had no worries about accidentally causing a paradox. He made sure to progress in chronological order so that he wouldn't hear about any of his future actions in the news. He was cheating, of course, but that just wouldn't be playing fair.

Three weeks, Earth time, into James's work, he noticed that someone else was also taking down Moriarty's network. They weren't as efficient as he was, but no human using contemporary technology could be as efficient as he was. The other group was going about it one branch at a time, but they were working through each branch relatively quickly. Some sort of small, relatively skilled team. He wondered whether it was another faction with a grudge before coming to the conclusion that this was more likely to be a team working for Mycroft. 

James didn't pay much attention to them; he had no interest in fighting them or teaming up with them. They had to be aware that he was around, given that he was destroying Moriarty's organization five times faster than they were, and he wasn't being particularly subtle about it. He wasn't too concerned, though; he wasn't easy to track.


	5. Chapter Five

Two weeks later, James walked into the headquarters of a human trafficker, Eli Krenich, in Germany. He killed every one of Krenich's underlings he met on the way to his office. They'd all known that Krenich was selling people, so he didn't feel particularly guilty. He'd freed the victims already. Technically speaking, he was currently freeing the victims, but in his personal timeline it had been a few hours ago.

When he got to the trafficker's office, though, Krenich was being questioned by a man with a gun in one hand and a bloody knife in the other. Apparently, James had been incorrect about how likely he was to meet the other team taking down Moriarty's network.

The man looked up. He seemed familiar, but James wasn't sure why. He had platinum blond hair, a rather hideous mustache, a hooked nose, and wild eyebrows. He pointed his gun at James while keeping the knife pressed against the trafficker's throat.

"Feel free to continue questioning him," James offered casually.

"I'd rather wait until you dropped your weapons," the man requested. 

He set them down on the floor. He didn't need weapons to win a fight, and he had his vortex manipulator if the situation became that desperate. It had already been programmed with the next destination, so James would be free to leave with the press of a button.

Krenich resisted questioning at first, but the man with the eyebrows proved convincing. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to tell them anything James didn't already know. 

Finally, the man was satisfied that the trafficker was of no further use. He killed the trafficker swiftly. James judged that he'd had practice doing so, but only recently. The motions were routine for the man, but not completely automatic.

"May I pick up my weapons, or would you be willing to carry them out for me?" James asked. "I'd rather not leave them here."

The man disarmed and unloaded his guns, pocketing the ammunition, before handing them back to him.

They quickly walked out of the building. When he judged that they were a suitable distance away, he pressed the detonator and the explosive charges blew up the whole building. A giant explosion in broad daylight wasn't subtle, but James wasn't going for subtle.

The man didn't seem particularly surprised by the explosion. James supposed that was fair enough; he'd blown up all of the previous headquarters he'd found. 

"Is this where we part ways, or where we have an amusing standoff before discovering that we're on the same side?" James asked. He didn't particularly fancy continuing to walk with the man; he had an arms smuggler in Egypt take down.

"You're the one who has been blowing up various bases of Moriarty's," the man stated. "Where's your team?"

"I don't have one. Where's yours?" James asked.

"I don't have one," the man parroted. "In my case, it's a true statement. In your case, it clearly isn't; you'd have to be multiple places at once in order to destroy bases at the rate at which you're doing it."

"Maybe I can teleport and travel in time," James joked. Making a joke of the truth usually led people to come up with an alternate explanation that they'd believe.

"Don't be trite," the man snapped. Then, his expression became incredulous. "You're being serious."

"Of course I'm not being serious," James replied, trying to laugh it off. "I knew that anyone trying to take on Moriarty's network alone would have to be mad, but you're even madder than I thought if you actually think that I'm a time traveler. Of course I have a team."

"Now you're lying. You made a joke that was actually the truth, but it backfired and now you're trying to repair the damage. You clearly aren't working with a team, after all. If you were, at least one team member would have come with you; this isn't a solo mission if you have any alternatives. So, time travel and teleportation. That's new. You're from the future, then; if anyone from this time period had invented time travel, I'd know about it," the man accused rapidly, his tone of voice shockingly familiar. James carefully studied the man, ignoring his body language, facial hair, and nose. Those could all be faked, as could the accent.

"And you're dead," James said steadily, hiding his shock. "Or have you also learned to time travel, Mr. Holmes?"


	6. Chapter Six

"What gave it away?" Sherlock asked, seeming surprised at being recognized.

"The stream of deductions is rather distinctive," James said dryly. He was about to keep his composure, even though all he wanted to do was yell at Sherlock, punch him, or possibly kiss him. 

"Old habit. Been a while since I've talked to someone on the same side," Sherlock confessed. "So, why does taking down Moriarty's network merit traveling in time?"

"Moriarty killed a friend of mine," James said, sticking as closely to the truth as he could.

"Moriarty had knowledge of time travel- no, of course not," Sherlock corrected himself. "Another time traveler was here in the twenty-first century and got killed, probably as a bystander."

"Not quite," James said, making up a story as he went. "My wife, Ari, was an anthropologist and spent some time in the twenty-first century. I've spent time here as a result of that, and so I know some of her friends in this century. She died a few years ago; she was sick. I decided I should pay a visit to her friends and let them know that she died, but I found out that one of them was killed by Moriarty. I decided that I might as well take out the network."

"You couldn't get revenge on your wife's killer, so you're doing it for her friend's instead. Hmm. Your story is plausible; it may even be true," Sherlock decided. 

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," James said wryly. "You faked your death in order to take down Moriarty's network more effectively, I suppose."

"Partially," Sherlock said. "It didn't help that Moriarty had three snipers under orders to kill my three closest friends if I didn't die."

And that was like a punch to the gut. James suddenly felt much less betrayed by Sherlock's faked death. More than ever, he regretted leaving the planet. Sherlock was going to be devastated by John's disappearance. 

James wondered whether he should tell Sherlock who he was, but he decided against it. James had a different personality than John had; it wasn't fair for him to expect Sherlock to adapt to it and still value his company so much. Not to mention, James wasn't actually sure if he wanted to go back to his old life in 221B after this. It had been quite a few years since he'd last met Sherlock, and he knew his memories of their old life weren't as good as Sherlock's. It wouldn't be fair. 

"I'm sorry to hear that," James asked. "Are they safe now?"

"I assume so," Sherlock said. "I have taken precautions. But I haven't actually looked for news on them; it would just put them in danger."

James had assumed that Sherlock didn't know about John's presumed death, but hearing that just reinforced his guilt at disappearing. 

"So," Sherlock said, abruptly switching subjects. "Teleport with me."

"Why?" James asked. He probably should have just lied and said that the vortex manipulator could only take one person, but he was still feeling guilty.

"Scientific curiosity," Sherlock said. "Not to mention, it would be more efficient and safer than actually traveling on my own."

"Alright," James agreed. He'd always had trouble saying no to the man. "One trip. Where do you want to go? I'm not going to transport you in time, since you don't have experience in avoiding paradoxes and I don't want to babysit you."

"Excellent," Sherlock said, a gleam on his face that looked rather odd with the fake nose and facial hair. "I have a rather promising lead in Beirut."

"Do you need to stop by wherever you are currently staying, or do you have everything you need with you?" James asked.

"I lost most of my possessions recently. I'm currently traveling only with the things I have on me," Sherlock said in a tone that didn't invite further questioning.

"Alright, then," James said. "Where in Beirut do you want to go?"

Sherlock gave him a latitude and longitude, which James programmed into his manipulator. Sherlock watched him intently the whole time. 

James grabbed hold of Sherlock's hand, telegraphing his motions so the man wouldn't spook. James tried not to relish the feel of Sherlock's skin on his. When their hands were arranged to his satisfaction, James pressed a button and transported them.

As soon as they arrived in Beirut, Sherlock looked around, seeming a bit shocked that the teleportation had actually worked. He looked like he wanted to run around and inspect everything, but he seemed to sense that James would probably leave if he did that. 

As it was, James wanted to spend as much time as he could with Sherlock, but he also knew that wasn't going to end well. It would be far smarter to cut ties now, before he got any more emotionally invested.

James reprogrammed his wristband to his original destination, Cairo. He was about to press the button, but Sherlock put his hand on James's wrist.

"It would be more efficient if we worked together," Sherlock said. "My intelligence and your technology combined would be a force to be reckoned with."

"I'm not in the market for a partner," James said, suppressing his desire to agree to Sherlock's suggestion. "And I'm already a force to be reckoned with."

With that, he removed Sherlock's hand from his wrist and teleported to Cairo alone.


	7. Chapter Seven

Five weeks after James met Sherlock, James went to Chicago to deal with the head of the United States branch of Moriarty's network. Finding the headquarters was a bit of work. The security was also what passed for top notch in this place and time. 

James didn't have much difficulty subduing them, but one of them did manage to graze his ear with a bullet. It wasn't a bad wound, but he could tell that it was going to scar, and bleed a lot in the meantime.

James finally got to the leader. After interrogating him and discovering a few more locations to investigate, James killed him. Then, James went to work.

He methodically went through the building, killing higher level workers and anyone who tried to kill him. He sent the lower level workers away if he was confident that they weren't deserving of death. He was merciful, as much as a man who had lived through as much war and killed as many people as he had could be. 

James thought that he was less empathetic than he had been as John. He wasn't sure that that was a bad thing. 

James had been through about two thirds of the rooms when he found Sherlock chained up in one of them. He didn't seem to be overly injured. Sherlock was facing away from the door and hadn't turned when James walked in, but James figured that was stubbornness and not impaired hearing. Of course, this was Sherlock, so anything could be possible. 

"Any idea where the keys are?" James asked. Sherlock turned around rapidly upon hearing James's voice. 

"Last I saw, they were in the pocket of a particularly unfriendly redheaded guard. Six feet tall, muscular but not bulky. Crooked nose, previously broken in two places," Sherlock described.

"Right," James said. "I'll be back."

James went back down the hallway he'd come from and dug through the pockets of the man Sherlock had described. He'd had to shoot the man when he'd refused to surrender. Sure enough, the keys were still in his pocket.

James returned and freed Sherlock of his confinement. 

"I'm surprised you didn't manage to pick the lock yourself," James ribbed him.

"I've only been here for a couple of hours," Sherlock told him, sounding sulky. "I'm surprised you let yourself get shot in the ear."

"It's only a graze, but I was surprised too," James replied lightly. "Now, I've still got about a third of the building left to go through. You want to stay here, or are you coming?"

Sherlock swept out of the room, looking offended that James had even asked. James followed him out. 

They methodically search the rest of the facility, dealing with the remaining criminals. James tried to do most of the killing; he knew that Sherlock had changed over the past few months, and that Sherlock had never been a particularly moral person to begin with, but that didn't mean James was comfortable seeing the changes that had come over his old friend. For a moment, he was glad that he'd spent thirty years away from Earth; Sherlock's transformation would have been much more jarring otherwise.

After all of the criminals had been dealt with, one way or another, James and Sherlock carefully destroyed any records that would be of use to anyone who wanted to continue Moriarty's work. They left the ones that the police would be interested in intact. 

As James and Sherlock were leaving the building, James left his calling card. It was a generic piece of paper- an index card, as papers of that size were called in this era- with the name James written on it. It was ambiguous yet mildly threatening. This regeneration was perhaps a tad more dramatic than his last had been. 

"Is that your name, or a reference to Moriarty?" Sherlock asked. "I've been curious for a while."

"Right, I never told you my name," James realized. "I'm currently going by James Armitage, but I chose James because of Moriarty. A culture that my wife was studying took on the names of their enemies until they'd been defeated. Moriarty wasn't subtle enough, but I thought James seemed appropriate."

"Interesting," Sherlock remarked. 

James decided not to overthink the expression on Sherlock's face. Whatever Sherlock had deduced about him didn't matter; Sherlock didn't know who he'd been, and that was the only thing that James really had to hide. 

"So, do you want me to drop you off somewhere?" James asked.

"We should work together," Sherlock told him.

"This again? No, we definitely shouldn't," James said.

"Just think of it. With my intelligence and your abilities, we'd be able to get through targets even faster. The less damage that Moriarty's network is able to do, the better. Or are you not in this to protect innocents?" Sherlock accused.

"Protecting innocents is pointless if you muck up the time stream. Which you'll do, I'm confident of it. You're the type who'd cause a paradox just to see what will happen," James argued confidently.

"I'm not an idiot. I'm quite satisfied with the world at the moment and would rather not do anything foolish to cause it to end. The end of the world would be impossibly dull. Not to mention, I'm probably the only contemporary human who's intelligent enough to quickly pick up on how to avert paradoxes. Unless I'm not, in which case it's simpler than you make it sound and I can definitely do it," Sherlock reasoned.

James was pretty sure that Sherlock was right. That didn't mean he wanted to work with Sherlock. Or, well, he actually did, but that was the problem. James knew that working with Sherlock would only end in emotional turmoil on his part. James would get sucked into Sherlock's orbit, just as he had before, and then he'd be devastated when Sherlock inevitably ensured that he didn't live to be middle aged. That was, if Sherlock wasn't furious at James concealing his identity from him.

"Have you heard of a man named Sebastian Moran?" Sherlock asked, apparently switching tactics.

"I've heard rumors. Moran seems to be Moriarty's replacement," James answered.

"He is. He's saner than Moriarty; he's less intelligent, but that doesn't matter as much since the network was already in place. He was a Colonel, but he was forced to retire because he took too much enjoyment in killing. He takes great pleasure in it, even more than Moriarty did. I know where he is, and I know which strings to pull in order to ensure that when we take him out, the entire network will crumble. If you continue blundering around, taking out any part of the network that you happen to stumble upon, you'll eventually get most of it, but there will be stragglers that go underground. You have the tech, but I have the strategy you need."

James thought that Sherlock was probably right. Brute force wasn't the best approach with such an intricate web of criminal activity, not if it meant that parts of the network would be passed over. 

Besides, he was still terrible at saying no to Sherlock.

"Fine. Where to next?" James asked. 

As Sherlock's eyes lit up, James already regretted his decision.


	8. Chapter Eight

Five and a half months after Sherlock and James teamed up, they finally reached the point where they were ready to take out Moran. It had taken longer that James had originally expected, but it was worth it for the extra certainty that the network would fall with him. Anyone who could plausibly take over for Moran had already been dealt with, and any resources he could have relied on to help him in their confrontation have been taken care of. 

In the end, they found Moran in an abandoned warehouse in Switzerland. He had proper headquarters in London, but he had apparently decided that the danger is too great for him to stay there. Knowing that gave James no small thrill. James wanted Moran to be scared before he dies. He deserved it, for being Moriarty's second in command. James had lost a best friend to Moriarty; even if Sherlock wasn't dead, their relationship would never return to what it had been before. Sherlock had singled John out as being the only person he knew who wasn't completely dull; in contrast, Sherlock only valued James for his tech and his fighting skills. It was a reality that James had accepted going in to this partnership, but that didn't mean he wouldn't enjoy taking out Moran. 

James carefully transported them within Moran's security perimeter. He couldn't transport them inside the warehouse; that would be too uncertain to risk. But avoiding the armed guards and chain link fence was definitely achievable.

Not that they wouldn't confront the guards eventually, of course. But taking them out now would risk alerting Moran to their presence, and they were relying rather hard on the element of surprise. 

Moran's guards are numerous, but James had been fighting for hundreds of years, and Sherlock was a quick study. They managed to fight their way through to the underground room where Moran was hiding without being majorly wounded. 

Moran, it seemed, was waiting for them. James recognized the man from Sherlock's description. He had the muscular build of a military man and the scars to match. Moriarty was creepier, but James thinks that Moran's appearance of utter sanity bothers him just as much as Moriarty's behavior had. 

"Well, come in," Moran says, gesturing with a rather nasty looking gun.

Sherlock and James enter.

"May I commend you on your skills, Mr. Armitage? My network hasn't been able to find any information on your past. You seem to have just sprung into existence a few days after Watson died. I had wondered if you were a particularly cleverly disguised version of him, but that's clearly not the case," Moran commented casually. "I suppose it really was suicide, then."

James wanted to turn to see Sherlock's reaction, but he couldn't. His priority was killing Moran before Moran tried to kill them. 

Moran raised his gun. "So, which one of you should I shoot first?" he mused. 

James formed a plan. It was likely to result in his regeneration if it failed, but Sherlock's odds of survival were good. That was James's priority. 

James lunged at Moran, making himself the target and aiming to throw the gun off course. He hoped it would be enough to prevent him from getting fatally shot just six years after his last regeneration, but he wasn't sure.

James's reflexes were better than Moran's, and the bullet went into the wall behind James. After a struggle, the next bullet went into Moran's heart.

Once Moran was dead, James finally looked at Sherlock. He looked as though he was going to be ill.

"Was John the friend that you came to avenge? Did you know all this time, and let me go on thinking that the world was still turning?" Sherlock asked, sounding broken.

James considered his options. He could lie to Sherlock. Tell him that John was the friend, and then leave Earth like he'd planned. In the long run, it was the best option. Getting attached to Sherlock again would be a mistake.

But James had never stopped being attached to Sherlock, really. He couldn't stop loving the man, as much as he wanted to. 

In the end, James decided to stall for time instead of telling the truth.

"We need to take out the rest of Moran's men. When we're safe, I'll tell you the whole story," James said.

With that, James left. Sherlock didn't follow behind him, but James didn't force him to. James killed all of the men who hadn't had the sense to run. While fighting, he considered his options. Telling Sherlock would probably just lead to grief on James's part, but he didn't want to hurt Sherlock. Sherlock had looked devastated by John's death, and James didn't want to be the cause of that. 

After James was certain all of Moran's men were dead or too afraid of him to cause any trouble, James went back for Sherlock.

That was when he discovered that Sherlock had apparently left the warehouse. James briefly wondered if one of the henchmen had managed to kill Sherlock in the chaos, but he swept the warehouse and that was clearly not the case. Sherlock had left of his own free will.

When James thought it through, he realized that he should have expected Sherlock to flee. Sherlock was the type to lick his wounds in private, even emotional ones. He probably had figured that James's explanation didn't matter in the face of John's death. 

James searched the area surrounding the warehouse, but he couldn't find Sherlock. Sherlock was too good at disappearing when he wanted to.


	9. Chapter Nine

James transported himself into the future, one day at a time. Each time, he searched for Sherlock's name online to see if Sherlock's survival had been revealed yet.

Sherlock's survival became public eight days after Moran's death. Once it became public, James went to 221B Baker Street and asked Mrs. Hudson if he could speak to Sherlock Holmes. He told her that he had worked with Sherlock while Sherlock had been faking his death; the truth was often the simplest option.

Mrs. Hudson told him that Sherlock stopped by a few days ago, but she hadn't seen him since. James considered the probability that Mrs. Hudson could be lying, since James was a stranger to her, but he thought that she was telling the truth. Their old flat had too many memories in it for comfort.

James considered contacting Mycroft directly, but he decided that was more likely to get him thrown in jail forever than to get him in touch with Sherlock. James was reasonably confident of his ability to escape anything twenty first century earth could throw at him, but he wasn't interested in wasting his time.

Finally, James decided to go to Harry.

"I saw online that Sherlock is still alive," Harry said by way of greeting.

"He is," James said. "I ran into him while we were both trying to take down Moriarty's network."

"How did that go? Did you tell him who you are?" Harry asked.

"I didn't. I wasn't going to, but he found out that John was dead a few days ago and he looked utterly devastated. I decided to tell him the truth, but I had to take care of some armed men first, and he was gone when I returned," James explained. "Actually, that's why I'm here. I can't get in touch with him, but I think that he'd come if you said that you had something that you had to tell him."

"Sure," Harry agreed. "I still have Mrs. Hudson's phone number; if she can't put me in touch with him, she'll probably at least have a way of contacting Mycroft."

"I already talked to her, and she said that she hadn't seen Sherlock in a few days. But she might have been lying to me, since I'm a stranger," James told her.

"I'll call her now," Harry says. She walks out of the room, presumably so that Mrs. Hudson won't be able to hear any unintentional background noise created by James.

Fifteen minutes later, Harry came back in the room.

"He'll be here in an hour and a half," Harry told James. James felt a mixture of anxiety and excitement at the thought of telling Sherlock the truth. 

Harry and James agreed that James should out of sight until Sherlock was fully inside the house. They didn't want him to leave before James could tell Sherlock who he was.

James waits in the kitchen as Harry greets Sherlock at the door. 

When Sherlock entered the kitchen, he froze. Harry, who had the foresight to walk behind him, subtly blocked Sherlock from immediately leaving.

"Hear him out," Harry told Sherlock. "John would have wanted you to."

"What John would have wanted doesn't matter," Sherlock said coldly. "He's dead."

James knew that Sherlock won't believe him if James told him outright about his identity. And Sherlock didn't have the patience for gentler forms of telepathy, not at this moment at least.

James focused on his last days on Earth as John Watson and his most recent regeneration, then grabbed Sherlock's head and headbutted him.

Sherlock looked furious for a fraction of a second, before he receives the memories. Rather than immediately react, Sherlock takes a few minutes to sort through the memories he's been given.

"Ah," Sherlock says. "I must say, I wasn't expecting that."

Harry leaves the room, closing the door to give them some measure of privacy.

"I figured I'd just leave for a couple of years and come back when I was ready to deal with your death. I kind of made a mess of that, sorry," James justifies.

"Yes, John, I know that. You gave me that information with your memories," Sherlock said dismissively.

"Nobody's called me that in thirty years," James told Sherlock. "Harry checks what name I'm currently using, and nobody else knows that I used to go by that name."

"Do you mind it?" Sherlock asked, looking uncertain.

"I've never been too picky about names, but I want to make sure that you understand that I'm not really the same person that I was before. Regeneration doesn't just affect my appearance; my personality changes, too. Not to mention the time that's passed," James said. "I can't be the John Watson you used to know. I'm sorry."

"Does this mean that you're going to leave Earth again soon?" Sherlock asked.

"That depends a lot on you," James admitted. "Just because I'm not the same person as I was before doesn't mean I don't still care about you. I'd like the stay with you, if you don't think the whole thing is too weird."

"I don't want your pity," Sherlock said coldly. "I understand that you're a different person. Trust me, you made it clear at the beginning of our partnership that you didn't want to work with me again."

James considered how to explain that he'd been avoiding Sherlock because he cared too much about him. He decided that words wouldn't be sufficient.

"May I share more memories with you?" James asked. "I'd prefer to not give us both bruises, so I'm going to use a slightly different method."

Sherlock nodded, looking intrigued.

John took Sherlock's head in his hands, but instead of headbutting him, he pressed their foreheads together. Sharing thoughts was slower without the pain of the headbutt to trigger the transfer of a whole bundle of thoughts, but it still worked the same way. James thinks about how he'd been in love with Sherlock back when he was John, then remembers his overwhelming grief after Sherlock's death. Then, James sends Sherlock his shocked joy at finding Sherlock alive, his fears about Sherlock not liking his new personality as much, his fears that spending time with Sherlock would just mean that Sherlock's death would hurt even more next time, his lingering grief over Ari's death, and his current love for Sherlock.

The transfer took a couple of minutes. James wondered whether the intimacy of their faces so close together bothered Sherlock, but Sherlock never protested. 

One Sherlock had received all of James's thoughts, James moved away from Sherlock. Sherlock spent the next several minutes in deep concentration, presumably sorting through the memories and forming his own conclusions.

Finally, Sherlock looked at James.

"I don't want you to leave," Sherlock said. "I don't know exactly how I feel about you as James, whether I'll be able to love you like I loved John or my feelings will remain platonic, but I want to find out."

James's heart soared a bit.

"We should move back in to 221B," Sherlock suggested.

"I'd like that," James agreed. "I'm not going to be moving in as John Watson, though. He's going to have to stay dead."

"Obviously. You can't move in as James Armitage, either," Sherlock stated. "Your name is too well known among the criminal underworld for that to be safe."

"I know. I've been considering a new name. Maybe Victor Travers?" James suggested.

"Victor Trevor would sound better," Sherlock stated confidently.

James considered the name for a minute. "I like the sound of that. Victor Trevor it is, then."

"Mycroft's going to be so shocked that I managed to make a second friend," Sherlock notes, a tad gleefully. "Now, come along, Victor. We've got work to do."

With that, Sherlock Holmes and Victor Trevor walked out of Harry's flat and into the next chapter of their lives.


End file.
